Fromme the Trewe & Uncertaine Chron'cles of the Destynye of E Corvega
by CressOMalley
Summary: The end of the war against the Institute should have shepherded the Commonwealth into a new era of stability. But indeed, "war never changes." A new threat emerged, a hero fell, and a young soldier named Ella Corvega shoulders the blame. A pariah, Ella wanders the wasteland with two friends searching for redemption, and intercepts a woman of peculiar origins.
1. The one they call Killkitty?

_Fromme the trewe chron'cles of the Destynye of E. Corvega_

**1.**

Soot and smoke coiled into the air in Cambridge, marking the end of the abrupt war against the Institute. On the roof of the Mass Fusion building, General Robinson stood, her hand clenched into a trembling fist, over the red button that wrought devastation hundreds of feet below. As this sapphire demi-god beheld her vengeance, I saw two tears streak down her cheek like meteorites, brilliant in the fading atomic flash.

Behind her, we gathered in loose formation - scattered fighters from the region's Minutemen militias, including what was left of mine - waiting for the debris cloud to clear, our laser muskets at the ready in a silent tribute to our consequences. The fight was inevitable, and we followed history's path all the way to its last resort. We exploded the reactor powering the Institute. Hundreds died in the first major nuclear detonation in the Commonwealth in 200 years. Conceited ambition led to another scar on our landscape, poisoned eternally.

I glanced up into the cloudless summer sky, confused by its incomprehensible peace. How could such calm exist unconcerned by the chaos we escaped just minutes ago? On that unfathomable blue screen, as cold wind brushed through me, my mind replayed the earlier battle.

_ Red and blue laser bolts strobed in time with blaring alarms as we exchanged fire with Synth fighters and Coursers in the Institute's main hall. Screams reverberated through the sterile glass and plastic shrine, all blending together. Minutemen, scientists, the human-y Synths: Everyone dies the same. Tall Jackie and I crouched near a support. He cranked charges into two muskets as I fired a third. The blast shattered the leg of an advancing lower-generation Synth — a skeletal face and yellow eyes leered from beneath its helmet. The android fell forward but never stopped. It crawled toward us, balanced on its remaining leg and one arm. The other arm pointed its rifle and fired three shots. One went wide and hit the wall. One went between us, nearly singing my cheek. The third pierced Jack's throat as he handed me a fresh musket. The Synth re-steadied its rifle for another burst. I pointed the new gun and squeezed the trigger blind. Still breathing, I opened eyes I didn't realize I had shut. Half the enemy's face had disintegrated into charred plastic and wiring. The skull smile was still intact. Revulsion compelled me to kick it, make it go away, as I bolted from my position and swiped the fallen Institute rifle. Teeth fell from the Synth's mouth._

_ "Human teeth," I gasped._

_ Real human fucking teeth in an artificial jaw. I couldn't cope. I vomited in a planter set on a nearby garden walkway where. A small brook flowed as programmed under a glass walkway oblivious to the carnage above it. I vomited again._

"War never ceases," General Robinson said, snapping me from my flashback.

I think. That's what I heard her say, at least. She spoke in a low voice, more to herself. I could hear her, but not clearly, from my position near the front of the gathering. I don't quite know how I got there; the luck of being one of the first through the jury-rigged teleporter, I suppose.

She turned to face us. We inhaled collectively. The faded dark blue coat, signifying her rank with the Minutemen, clashed with the vibrant blue of her vault suit. She wanted the Institute to know exactly who was kicking their ass and why.

The General scanned the crowd, looking us each in the eye. I scratched my nose when she found mine. I needed the distraction. Those intense, sad dark eyes threatened to ignite my spirit. I wanted to go home.

"Thank you," was all she said when she finished her review.

The General walked through us, hands buried in her overcoat's deep pockets, to the other side of the crowd. She spoke to Commander Garvey and some worker guy with a pompadour and grease-stained hands. Tribute time had passed. The troops broke and headed for the elevator back to earth, eager to celebrate victory.

I shouldered the rifle I claimed from the Institute and followed my militia, The Silvers, to the line forming at the door. A flash of metal winked to me from the rooftop near the General. I hoped I was about to snag an unnoticed bottle cap. No such luck. What I picked up was a ring – a gold wedding band inscribed "N.R. + N.R."

I diverted to the General's small conference. She finished saying something, and Pompadour Guy laughed – a nervous, relieved chuckle only survivors understand. Commander Garvey, smiling, checked my approach.

"Need something, soldier," he asked.

"Ah, y-yes'm, um, I think her General ma'am dropped something. Um, sir," I stammered in reply.

Alarms blared in my brain to turn around, walk away, do something else. Anything else. She turned to me with a grin, locking me in place. The intensity from earlier had eroded off her face and settled onto her shoulders. She patted her pockets and asked, "What'd I lose this time?"

I held the ring to her. She plucked it from my fingers and examined it.

"I picked it up right behind you," I gestured to the ground. "Nobody here I know has something like this. Has to be yours."

"Nate," she whispered.

"Thank you. Ella right? The one they call 'Killkitty?' This is beyond- you saved my ring. I carried it all this way and almost...," she trailed and shook her head. "I would've been devastated if I'd lost it."

Seeing her now, hearing her speak, I can't believe how normal she actually is. Word travels fast in this world. News reports, war stories and drunken tall tales built her into some monolith, a dread myth immortalized by titles like Sole Survivor, General, Paladin, Death's Avenger and most recently my favorite, Mother of the New Commonwealth. But here, this sudden legend was as fragile, awkward and weird as the rest of us. I couldn't process it, so I did the only thing I could do and just went with it.

"I happened to see it shine in the sun. The bottom of my glasses caught the reflection," I said, absently pushing the frames back up my sweaty nose.

"Well that's seriously impressive. I can't thank you enough," General Robinson said, checking her coat again. "The ring must've slipped through a hole in my pocket."

"Glad I could help," I sighed nervously.

"Just between you and me, I hate this old thing. It's heavy, it's hot, and it's falling apart," she said. "I owe you a beer sometime."

"I'd like that," I smiled.

"Great," she replied and started to turn back around.

I stared a moment. She said something peculiar there, and I had to know why.

"Hey wait," I blurted, unable to stop myself. She faced me again, an eyebrow cocked. "How, um, do you know my name?"

I can't believe I asked her that and mentally kicked myself. The General just grinned.

"Tell you what: when we get that beer, I'll tell you how I know your name, and you can tell me where the hell 'Killkitty' comes from. I'm dying to hear the story behind that."

The General returned to her group. Commander Garvey threw a friendly salute, and Pompadour Guy waved. I nodded and walked back to the elevator line. Wisps of smoke, like lost souls considering their options, still hung in the evening sun over the ruins of the Commonwealth Institute of Technology.

That was a year and a half ago.

I never got that beer with the General – Nora. I learned her name was Nora - life just got in the way. Our paths crossed only one more time: the day we lost her. She fell in my home settlement during what came to be known as the Siege of Starlight.

I can't help looking back at my encounter with Nora Robinson as the moment everything changed for me. That day, the nor'easter force of her destiny engulfed mine and dragged me into uncharted waters.

Today, I'm sitting in a ditch with Laughing Tom Sheffield and Anna "Bait" Masters preparing to lead a three-person assault on a Raider fortress. As we wait for nightfall, I look down into my shirt at the chain holding Nora's wedding ring. I re-read the other inscription on the inside.

"Love never changes."


	2. Steak and Eggs

**2\. Don't put your blame on me**

Everybody hates me.

I'm not even exaggerating or complaining. Everybody really hates me.

They all heard stories or passed along the rumors, and that's enough for people to decide I'm guilty of the worst act of theft and looting ever. I'm lower than a Raider, bound for a special level of hell. I'd hate me too if even half of what people say is true.

But I swear, I never intentionally took anything off General Robinson's body. Everything happened so fast. Now I'm on the run, and I'll never go home again.

I pull the large modified revolver from its holster on my left hip and examine it against an orange January dusk. Fading sunlight glows off the gun's blue-steel finish. I rock it up and down, pretending I'm sailing a narrow ship across the horizon. I trace a finger along the mirror letter "K's" embossed on the padded grip and replay an ongoing game in my mind.

"_K" stands for "killer" - no, too on the nose; stands for "Knight" - no, too proud; stands for "knife" - no, too ironic; stands for "Karl," a former lover – no, too cheesy; stands for…_

"I'm bored," Anna whines to my right. "I think it's dark enough. Les' take 'em now, and we c'n be back tamorrow in time for pancakes."

"Just… patience," I whisper.

Laughing Tom flips a curved black knife into the slush where he squats. He studies the hilt from under the wide-brimmed hat he always wears. Breath steams from his nostrils in the chill.

Bait tosses a rock into the river next to us.

"Do ya think this job'll make us rich," she asks, rubbing her hands. "I wanna try steak. Real brahmin steak. With eggs. I'm sick of cold Cram."

"I wouldn't count on a big score. You should save your caps anyway," I reply, re-holstering the revolver. "We'll move soon, when RI-One the Protectron marches into the sky."

"But tha's gonna be far-ever," Anna groans. "I hate waitin'."

"Here, play some Def-Con Queen. See how many times you can nuke the king before it's time to go," I say, pulling a pre-war deck of cards from a pouch in my satchel and tossing it to her.

Anna catches it in her three-fingered left hand without looking up. Freaks me out when she does stuff like that, reacting without looking.

Dealing vintage cards in front of her, Anna stifles a giggle.

"The nudie deck! Ya do love me, Private," she giggles some more.

"Don't call me that," I bark.

My tone's harsh, harsher than it needs to be. That life's long gone, but sore scars remain. Bait sulks and deals a few more cards. No nukes that round. Tom throws his knife again.

I risk a peek over the steep river bank behind us, hoping nobody heard us. The silhouette of a hooded figure strolls a makeshift wooden parapet along a derelict motel in the distance. Squinting against the pale, setting sun, I make out the barrel of the pipe rifle he grasps at his side.

I lean back against the bank and wait for nightfall. I'd never admit it to Anna, but I'm bored too. Patience is hard work.

I think back to home – when it still was home – and the disaster that chased me to this place where I sit in snow. Cold, wet and hungry, I'm bitter, wishing I could wake up from this nightmare. We're about to risk our lives on a small-time job, and I dare not tell Tom or Anna the real reason why.

_Alarm bells clang. Layered over them are shouts of pain, terror and defiance. Through a haze, people run in haphazard directions. My head hurts, and I cough uncontrollably, unable to suck air into my lungs. Laser fire slices the air. Blue bolts strobe across the landscape. I smell the pig stench of scorched flesh mixed with singed ozone. Above me, a guard turret explodes on the Starlight screen._

_The fireball blurs into a hazel iris adrift in a bloodshot eyeball. I stare into the dead pupil of Caroline's corpse. Her executioner, an older-model Synth, marches away and returns to its post with the sound of distant bells. I'm kneeling, hands held up, a hostage. My chest tightens, jammed with conflicting urges to cry, scream and laugh._

_I wheeze, running for shelter. Lasers, muskets and machine gun fire duel across the burning mound where the Starlight screen stood. Charred wood and twisted, snapped girders are all that remain. Minutemen troops carve through disorganized Synths, scattering them. In my panic, I bump into an armored Synth and scrape my face on its ceramic chest plate. The android whirs and identifies me. Its rifle levels at my face, and a blue light flickers, promising to be the last thing I ever see. As a prayer chokes in my voice, the monster's head explodes in a spray of sparks. I blink, unsure what I did. A shout startles me. I turn and see her, the General in all her blue glory, running toward me, revolver still pointed and smoking. She yells again, but bells ring out of her mouth._

"Ding, ding, ding! Time to wake up, sleepyhead," Anna's voice chimes as she taps my forehead. "Ding, ding, ding! Time to make Raiders go dead."

I plunge to consciousness with a gasp. My hand falls to the gun on my hip as two faces stare down at me in moonlight.

Tom holds a finger to his scarred lips to shush me. My mind catches up to the present. His eyes are white as cake under his hat. He points to the sky. RI-One the Protectron strides over the aurora of the Glowing Sea.

"'Bout time, Priv- er, Ms. Corvega," Anna says. "C'n we finalally go get rich?"

"Yeah, Bait. Yeah, it's time," I say, rubbing my eyes. "Sorry, I didn't realize I drifted off. Bad dream."

"No shit, Shroud. You must'a been having THE dream again. Kept mumbling ''Postle Paul.' You have weird dreams. I dreamed once we were trapped in a mine and Tom was a dentist," she babbles.

Tom rolls his eyes and shakes his head while he stashes our supply bags under some roots.

I slip the strap of my rifle over a shoulder. Anna stuffs a few grenades into a hip pouch and loads her sawed-off. Tom unsheathes his knife and wipes it on a sleeve twice for luck. His eyes catch mine, and he nods up for us to turn and look at the motel with him.

Pointing up the hill, his forefinger and pinky track two Raider walking the roof in the winter moonlight. He gestures downward and frames a broken window to identify the head of a third Raider shrouded in orange lantern light.

I give Tom a thumbs up. Go time.

"Okay. We've done this before. We all know how this goes. Let's hit 'em quick, clean and hard," I say.

"And think steak and eggs," Anna adds.

"Steak and eggs," I repeat as a mantra. Tom grinds his jaw.

Freezing hot fire from adrenaline numbs my belly. I take a deep breath and crawl up the bank with Anna. Tom disappears into the tree line with no sound. Not even the snow crunches.

Anna and I position close to a bush, a few yards behind a derelict pickup truck. I ease the rifle from my shoulder and steady it before peering into the scope. With some adjustments, I focus on one of the rooftop Raiders, getting a feel for his patterns. I gesture to Anna to begin creeping up to the structure.

I think "steak and eggs" over and over again. The image relaxes me somehow. I only get one shot. When this rifle fires, all our stealth is gone. I'm going to make this hit. My Raider – the hooded one from earlier, I note – turns and looks out at the ruins of a small town from the edge of the roof. He scratches his head with the barrel of his gun. True mastermind, he.

With my guard distracted, Tom makes his move on the other one. He had slipped through a small hole in the rear fence and crept up a small staircase to the roof. His moccasins never made a sound. As Guard Two faces the front of the motel's perimeter, Tom stretches from a crouch. He wraps a large hand around the man's mouth and stabs him in the larynx, followed by more thrusts into the neck. A final blow pierces his heart.

"Wha," my Raider questions when his partner's chest cracks.

Before he can complete his whirl, I fire. His hood erupts into gore through the scope. The blast from the rifle claps, echoing off the roof and surrounding trees.

"God fucking damnit! Wake up, we got trouble," Raider Three bellows from the window.

An explosion cuts him off, turning words into screams. Anna's turn. She had lobbed a grenade into the window and sprinted back to my side.

"Cha-ching," she celebrates.

Anna tosses a second grenade at the building, threading a perfect shot through the window. A second blast silences the Raider. A woman screams from inside.

Anna and I look at each other, question marks printed on our faces. We counted four male Raiders when we cased the motel. None of us expected a woman to be there as well. I scramble into a run for the front door, revolver in hand, dodging debris and assorted Raider junk on the ground. Bait trails behind, unholstering the sawed-off.

Inside, gore from what's left of Raider Three paints the walls. I spot the woman, naked except for a collar, panting on the far side of the room's single bed. Tom peeks from a rear door. He was supposed to finish our now-missing Raider Four if he wasn't already killed by the grenades. But he held back when the unexpected guest started screaming.

"Fuck me, man. Can't a guy nap while dropping a duke in peace," a slurred voice announces behind me.

In a side doorway, a bleary-eyed man half-pulls a pair of trousers up while rubbing the stubble on his cheek.

Raider Four, I presume, takes in the carnage. He whispers, "Jeans-us," when he notices Anna and I standing in the room. Dried green slobber crusts on the sides of his DayTripper addicted lips.

Without warning, Anna unloads both barrels of the sawed-off on him. Raider Four stumbles back a step, but falls forward. A new shade of red splashes in the room. "Oh fuck, fuck me, fuck me, oh fuck, fuck me," a voice mutters.

The woman. She's still sitting on the side of the bed, panting and turning pale. Her head swivels to face us. Wide rabbit eyes scan our faces. She stiffens when the empty shotgun barrels swing to her. I step in front of Anna, holstering my gun in the process.

"Are you OK? We didn't know you were here," I say at a loss for anything better.

The woman blinks like she's reading each of my words like notes on sheet music.

"Helloooooo," Anna asks slowly.

Her trance broken, a blank calm resets across Naked Woman's face.

"Could I interest you in a massage? Though I caution my effectiveness may be limited," she speaks.

Naked Woman stands and faces us fully. Her left hand placidly gestures to the blackened, ragged stump of her right arm. Blood squirts to the floor.

"I have experienced trauma that will require attention soon," she says in a dry tone.

"A Synth! Kill it dead," Anna wails.

My mouth goes dry. She muscles past me, cracking open her shotgun barrels and loading fresh shells. Naked Woman witnesses the commotion with curiosity.

Anna readies to fire again, but Tom grasps the weapon and twists it from her grasp. She growls. Tom stares her down and shakes his head.

"But she's – IT's – a fuckin' synth," Anna argues. Tom holds his ground. "You can't be serious. These things're monsters."

Tom folds his arms. They both look to me. I don't know what to say. Anna's not wrong. I've only known Synths as infiltrators, walking weapons of mass destruction. But I look at the woman, nude except for a collar strapped around her neck. That she's as unconcerned about the bloody remains of her right arm as a lamp cares about a missing light bulb freaks me out. That polite, patient expression on her mouth freaks me out. But I'm drawn to the collar, a thick leather strap with a blinking box attached to it. The symbolism sways me.

"She's a slave. Again. We're not killing her," I say looking down at the floor.

Anna groans and throws up her hands in disgust. She storms out of the motel. Tom nods with gratitude.

"Find her some clothes and bandage that arm. We don't need deathclaws or yao guai picking up the scent of raw meat," I tell him. "I'll get Bait. She'll perk up when she remembers there's loot to plunder."

Tom wraps a shredded scrap of blanket around Naked Woman and leads her to the rear door.

"I look forward to entertaining your needs as soon as I am fit to return to service," I hear her say to him.

The promise of first dibs on any caps, chems or quality scav convinces Anna to come back into the motel, but she refuses to speak to me while we work. I poke around the room searching for evidence to a far greater treasure: A key to restoring my honor.

After sifting through a crate of garbage, I accidentally back into the bed. An empty whiskey bottle falls and shatters. I curse at the noise, but in a glance I find the bottle wasn't exactly empty. A locket lies among a few scattered papers.

I gather the trove. A couple pages feature scrawls of misspelled poetry about liquor or murder. Lewd doodgles of stick figures with giant cocks rape women, rape men, rape the world in the margins. The name "Hammer Rammer" takes credit for the work.

Another page is a letter from someone signed "Gramma B." She thanks "Cedric" for taking the time to write while he's out working and for posting a few caps to her to help with food and medicine. He's a good boy. I peel open the locket. On one side is a photo of a younger Raider Four, aka Cedric the "Hammer Rammer," posing with a woman. A small folded scrap is slotted in the concave hollow of the locket's other half.

Opening the paper reveals it was half a bounty poster. The warrant seeks information on grave robbers who desecrated General Robinson's tomb, signed by Sheriff Willis P. Sterling, Goodneighbor. I know Sterling. He's a stooge. What does he care about the tomb heist?

On the back, I find more of Cedric's scribbled poetry.

_From twats we came and into twats we come_

_ I wanted to ride the dragon twat on the point of my gun_

_ She got dropped before I could nail her_

_ That's okay I'll still take her treasure_

_ the twat that made the twat that forged the Hammer_

_ I stuffed the only box that matters_

_ HA HA HA HA HA HA Hammer Slammer Hammers all twats! Twat master me_

And the poem trails off into more doodles of stick figures swinging massive cocks at women and trees and cities.

I examine the boy in the locket and glance down at Cedric's corpse, his head pulped into a rainbow of hues. His lips seem curved in the same smile as the boy's.

Anna's preoccupied counting caps and rooting for more shotgun shells. I stuff the locket, the pages and the torn poster into a jacket pocket. A tickle on the bridge of my nose tells me Cedric knew something about what I'm looking for.

Later, after we've gathered and packed what loot we could find and carry, our small group, now grown by one, begins the slow, cautious hike back to Halloween, our hideout outside Boston.

"Well, this 'as a waste," Anna complains. "All that work, an' we came away with practically nothin'. They had 22 caps – 22 caps! - 'tween the four o' 'em. Plus, some stringy meat – half it spo'l'ed –ammo noone cares about, garbage scrap an' no good chems. AAAaaand, now wer' stuck with a danged cripple Synth who's 'tarded."

"That one seems stressed," the woman says to Tom. "Would she like a half-massage? I can still use this arm."

Anna grimaces and shakes her head. Tom walks close to Synth Woman protectively, like he's nursing a dog with a broken paw. I see an injured radscorpion. She wears baggy pants cinched with a length of rope and an undershirt Tom pulled off the body of one of the Raiders. Her left hand barely reaches out of its sleeve; the right sleeve sways empty.

"Steak and eggs, Bait," I chuckle. "One day we'll be living the dream."

"If you say so," she mutters.


	3. Paler Than Risen Chr

**3.**

I can't stop looking at her face.

I try to keep my eyes on the path, but every few seconds I get this impulse to look at the Synth woman. I can't help it. Each time, my stomach flips.

The woman shuffles along with us through the forest, guided by Tom in the night. He keeps her from stumbling over rocks, tripping on logs or debris, and getting slapped by branches. He's gentle, patient, almost parental. I've never seen this side of him in the short time we've been together.

Anna disappeared a few hours ago, scouting ahead and keeping a distance. Paranoid and angry over taking this woman in, she insisted we divert east away from home for now to throw off any potential tail. She argued Synths have tracking devices in them. I conceded to her. Anna wasn't going to budge if we stuck to the original plan.

I still doubt we'd have been followed from the motel. We pulled off another standard Raider hit – well, routine as far as Anna and Tom knew – and made sure beforehand that group was isolated. Still, that woman wasn't part of the plan. Anna may have a point.

In the hours since we left, I'm confounded by the profound effect of taking her is having on our group. As unexpected as Tom's tenderness seems, Anna's silence is almost disturbing. Most trips, we can't get her to shut up – she's either babbling an unsettling anecdote, or making light of the abuse she took as a kid, or trying to tell jokes she can't remember right, or singing lewd tavern songs. She hates silence, and she hates being separated from us for long. That she's both tonight, worries me.

But overriding my thoughts on Tom and Anna's behavior is this woman. Somehow and somewhy she's General Robinson. A Synth version of her. And I'm twisted up inside about whether I made the right call to keep her alive.

"Caution. This organic system will require sustenance and an opportunity to recharge soon, as well as a necessary repair, in order to continue performing at optimal capabilities," the woman chimes in the dark. She has the General's voice too.

She plants her feet in a clearing. Tom's in front of her, holding a finger to his lips and the palm of his other hand up toward her face, urging her to be quiet. The woman seems to ignore the gesture.

"Failure to satisfy these matters could result in decreased performance standards, temporary loss of function or a permanent shut-down," she continues. Tom's eyes widen as he tries shushing her again.

"Atom's balls, it's fuckin' 'bout to pass out," Anna mutters from the dark. "Get rid of it."

Anna crept out of the brush and walked right up next to me. I never heard her. Startled, I grip the butt the butt of my pistol in its holster.

"Anna! Bango bongo! Scared the shit outta me," I gasp, heart thumping a Gene Krupa beat.

"D'ja just say?"

"Where've you been? It's been hours since-"

"Ya say 'Bango bongo?' D'fuc-?"

"Never mind. Are you OK?"

"I'm whatever. But we gotta leave that thing go, or none'a us is gonna be OK."

"We can't. She's staying until we figure some stuff out first," I assert.

Tom fishes a strip of jerky and the canteen from his satchel. The woman reaches with what remains of her right arm; the sleeve of her military coat droops like an empty hose. Tom patiently puts the meat strip into her left hand and helps guide it to her mouth.

"Ain't nothin' ta figure. Put it out its misery 'fore we all get killed babysittn'," Anna whispers. "The thing ain't right. We need'a get clear of it."

"Not yet. I just… can't. Can't do someone cold like that," I fret.

"Self-defense ain't murder," Anna retorts. "Mark me, this thing'll be the death o' us."

Tom raises a thumb's up – the Synth's good to go. She mimics the gesture, and then reaches to offer him another massage. He pushes her hand away, gently.

Beyond the clearing, a dark shade of gray paints the eastern horizon. Dawn is close. We need to find a place to hole up a bit. My stomach rumbles. The sight of the jerky puts me in the mood to eat for the first time in more than a day.

We forge on, east toward the brightening sky. Anna slips back into the forest to resume scouting alone. Tom guides Synth woman forward. I follow, guarding our rear, listening for any sound of awakening wildlife or worse. My eyes, though, clamp onto the back of the woman's head.

_**A **__**few**__** hours later...**_

The sun crests the skyline, and a peculiar four-note whistle echoes off the dead branches around us. Tom and I stop and crouch. He tugs the woman's sleeve, and she lowers next to him. Anna appears through some bramble ahead of us, eyes glinting.

"Dirt track up ahead," Anna whispers. "Still used; mud all churnt up wit slush. Trails north. Thought I seen smoke up inna hill a little ways."

Could be a settlement or could be another Raider clutch.

I look over at Tom. He shrugs, stifling a yawn. My call. Hard to decide, and I don't know why it's me.

"OK, um, good work. Think you can make it up there, see what's what," I ask.

Anna frowns and looks back over her shoulder.

"I guess," she whines. "I mean, you really thinkin'a' walkin' us into a place with bullet bait there?"

I feel my stomach churn again, and the corners of my eyes itch.

"Just go check it out, would you," I reply, frustration cutting through my throat. "We'll meet you at the track and then decide"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing, 'Baaws.' Maybe they'll also serve up plates full'a them steak an' eggs yer always promising," she mocks.

Anna salutes with a middle finger to her forehead before running off again. The rest of us stand up and follow her at a distance.

"The female seems agitated. Perhaps she would benefit from sexual intercourse," Synth woman blurts. "I am proficient in a variety of techniques that would stimulate and relax her."

Tom coughs. God, the way she talks, in that voice and with that face… Emotions swirl, and I feel shut out of my body for a moment, just long enough for my pistol slide up my leg from its holster. Tom grips my wrist firmly. Dark eyes lock onto mine with a stern plea to curb my impulse, and I snap back into focus. My hand relaxes, and he lets go.

"I... don't think you're her type," I reply to the woman in a mumble.

At the track, Tom paws around in the mud, then begins waves me to him. Brahmin tracks, he points, heading north up the small hill. Fairly fresh, maybe a day or two. Half-frozen turd pile up the side of the road.

Brahmin's a good sign. Probably a settlement or traders. Raiders don't usually waste their time with the beasts. They usually take what they can get their hands on and get the fuck out. Slavers though…

Anna returns to the group, flashing the OK sign.

"Small settlement up 'head. Trappers by the looks, but thought I seen a tavern with it," she said in a slightly better mood.

"Excellent. Let's hope we don't get shot," I sigh.

Jammed Double-Barrel Hill is more or less as Anna described it. Inside a rotting wooden fence, a shack leans at one end, and a barn stands at the other. A couple still-harnessed brahmin chew cud in a nearby pen, and a small vegetable patch holds the decaying evidence of carrots and gourds. The pale smoke Anna saw curls from a chimney attached to the barn. Skeletal birch trees hold up outstretched Radstag skins like inquisition victims.

As we approach the open gate, a heavy poke digs into my back. I halt, and my hands instinctively swivel to my shoulders. Out of the corner of my eye, Tom stands in front of the woman, blocking her, hand on the hilt of his knife. Anna's three-fingered hand grips the sawed-off in her coat.

"State your business, meat," growls the voice of the man who got the drop on us. "You ain't traders, that much's clear."

"Refugees. From farther north," I blurt, trying to think fast. "Making our way south, but we saw the smoke, and we're hoping for some hot breakfast."

The gun barrel pushes in deeper. My blood frosts in a wave across me.

"Ref-agees? Go'dammit," the deep voice spits. "Better not be bringing no Destineer reclamists here."

"Please, crosby, ain't no Synth able to track me down," Anna blurts, rolling her eyes, ignoring the gun nuzzling my kidney.

"No, we weren't followed," I insist. "Travel at night, no campfires."

"They can see in the dark, y'know," the man interrupts.

"Please, sir! We've been on the road a few days, fleeing Taffington, trying to find Oberland Station," I lie. "Don't really know where we are anymore. We stumbled onto the trail here and prayed to whoever listens anymore for a safe place to stop."

The pressure on my back eases. I think he bought it.

"Bullsheeit," he replies.

Fuck.

"Nice sob story, but I see the gear yer packin'. Y'ain't ref-agees neither. I ought'a blow your guts into soup."

Anna and Tom coil tighter.

"But on t'other hand," the man continues. "You have a lean look about ya. Y'also talk too pretty for Raiders and Jet-mouthed scavvers, and ya stink too much to be Synth spies."

I hear the click of a safety, and the weapon unsticks from my back. I turn around, slowly, to see who came a paranoid second away from ending this story early. The man's tall, taller than Tom. Under scruffy red hair, one blue eye scowls, the other's blank white with no pupil or iris and bulges slightly in its socket.

"Thank you, Mister…," I say as Tom and Anna warily unclench.

"Never you mind," he barks.

"Callum! Callum Morrissey," a voice calls. "Yah let them in. They clearly ain't here to stir up trouble."

A woman wearing a pre-war blouse and trousers under a long coat stands at the gate, knuckling her hip with one hand and waving us forward with the other.

"You heard her," Callum nods, frustrated.

He shoulders his rifle and walks to a blind built into a cluster of trees and bramble nearby. Anna savors his ass as we resume our hike into the settlement. Retro Woman greets us at the entrance. She's young, but with the lines and creases of someone twice her age. Reddish-brown hair ends in weak curls, reminiscent of mothers on peeling billboards from the last age. The edges of a purple tattoo on her wrist peer from a cuff of her blouse.

"Lord, yah look like starved, frozen ghouls. 'Specially this lass here," Retro Woman declares in an enthusiastic tone.

She nods to our maimed Synth, who Tom keeps close behind his back.

"Are you OK," she asks the woman, then turns back to me. "Is she OK? Paler than Risen Christ's fingernails."

"She's… Well, we're all…," I stutter, waving vaguely at our group, desperate for a new lie.

"Listen to me, gabbin' when yah need to be gettin' inside," the woman interrupts. "Head on over to the barn. Unc'a Matt's inside workin' the spit."

A harsh cloud crosses her face, and her congeniality disappears.

"Yah got caps, right," Retro Woman asks, voice lower with suspicion.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, we have caps. We can pay," I reply.

"Great!" Her smile brightens again. "I'll meetcha inside. Got chores ta finish first. Name's Colleen, Colleen Morrissey, by th'way. My brother, Callum, yah met."

Colleen extends a hand, and I grip it.

"I'm El – _cough! – _Emmmily," I wheeze the next lie out. "I'm Emily, and this is T-"

Colleen cuts me off again.

"Shoo. We'll talk later. Get outta this cold."

We head through the gate where a crude sign with dried brown grease painted on it welcomes us to "Jammed Double-Barrel Hill." Mounted with it are molerat skulls under a shotgun with a split and cracked wooden butt. An upside down triangle with a thin rectangle over it are scrawled on a bottom corner of the sign.

Anna beats me to the barn's open side door and rushes inside. I hold the door open for Tom and the woman before heading in last. I glance back out to the yard. A rifle barrel slinks into the gloom behind one of the shack's windows.

Half the barn's been converted into a small saloon with a bar, a few tables, and a firepit in the middle of the floor. A bearded old man, undoubtedly "Unc'a Matt," cranks a couple squirrels and a lizard on a spit over molten coals. Another fire keeps a pot of stew hot in a fireplace behind the bar, while ancient music crackles through static from a pre-war wireless on a counter. Nat King Cole swoons amid an orange-colored sky.

A couple traders sit at one of the tables. They eye us as we take seats at another table across the floor.

The heat in the barn wraps around me like tar. Ranging out in the post-apocalyptic winter these past days, I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to be warm and dry. I involuntarily shiver. Tom and Anna's teeth also clink, audible over grease popping from the spit. Our woman does nothing but stare at the fire.

Anna pulls a few caps and a couple rifle rounds from her pack and hands them to me. I take them to the man at the firepit.

"What can we get with this," I ask Unc'a Matt.

He spreads the items in my palm, snorting under his breath.

"Hm. I spec' a couple'a mouthfulls a'tha crow stew. Maybe half'a cup'a boiled water. Hm," Matt concludes.

"Any coffee to got with that," I propose.

"Na' 'less you got more'n where that come from, hm. Coffee's hard'a come by out'chere."

I glance back at the group. Another shiver waves over me.

"Deal. Stew and water. Take what we can get," I relent.

With a cracked, warm hand, Matt picks out the caps and pockets them before scooping up the bullets. Those he examines against the firelight, checking whether they're live or spent. I swallow, hoping Anna didn't slip me a dud. He nods and limps to the bar where he slops stew into some carved bowls and dips a tin cup into a bucket.

We sip our breakfast in silence. Tom helps the woman learn to get used to eating with her lone left hand. The traders slurp down the rest of whatever they're having and head out, still watching us. Old Matt pulls the roasted animals off the spit and returns to a chair by the fireplace behind the bar. He begins snoring within a few minutes. Frank Sinatra competes with him from the radio.

"What now," Tom gestures. The criss-cross scars over his lips stand out against the pit's glow.

"I still vote we kill it an' get right tha fuck outta here," Anna says, belching.

"Not gonna happen," I retort, almost automatically now.

The woman continues staring at the fire. Addled as she is, I can't tell if she's following this discussion over her life.

"Then ditch it here at least," Anna begs. "We can't take care'a it. Barely got 'nuff supplies an' caps for ourselfs."

Tom cuts a hand across the table, stating a flat "no" to the idea.

"Not here. Woman unsafe," he gestures emphatically.

"Why? I mean, aside from abandoning a fresh amputee who offers sexual favors at a hunting settlement," I say. "What more danger could she be in?"

"See sign? Family's wrists?" he asks in response.

Anna and I look at each other. Nothing seemed that out of the ordinary to us. Tom pulls a pencil stub and a yellowed notebook from his satchel. On the corner of a page, he draws the upside down triangle and rectangle that were on the entrance sign. Next to it, he draws a nearly identical symbol, except the rectangle is a sword and the triangle's curved, resembling a shield. I shrug, unsure about what he's showing me.

"Secret organization. Synth lynchers," he replies, tapping the pad.

"No shit? I like 'em even more now," Anna laughs.

Tom shakes his head.

"Kill woman. Us too. Fanatics. No compromise," he signs.

I exhale as the implications of our precarious situation sink in.

"What organization are they? I don't recognize the symbol," I whisper, glancing around the room. A deep snore sounds from the bar.

"Commonwealth Conceptionist Militia. C-C-M. A-K-A 'Breeder Brigade.'"

"How do you know?"

Tom's eyes frown a bit. He cocks his head with a crooked grimace, and holds up his palm – the universal look for, "bitch, please."

"Right, right. It's you," I nod, recalling Tom's history. "Then let's get outta here. Still got a long hike ahead of us."

"Wait. First. Woman's bandage. Needs changed. Now," Tom argues.

"Oh, fer the luvva…! Forget that shit. Let's jus' go! Now! And without her. I ain't gettin' skinned for Miz Rubber-Cooze," Anna complains.

"Enough! Enough. You're giving me a headache with this," I hiss, staring her down.

We lock gazes for a few moments before she flinches and looks down at her hands. I rub my eyes with a thumb and forefinger. I'm beyond exhausted, but still amped by fear, bewilderment and stress. Since we sat down, I've started hallucinating whispers from buried memories. I haven't slept more than a few hours since this adventure started a few days ago.

– _move! __r__un! / backstabbin' bitch – _

Tom taps my hand, dragging me back to reality. Concern and need swim in his eyes. I hate that look, the pressure for me to make decisions. Skeeter Davis pouts from the radio that her break-up is literally the end of the world. If only she knew.

– _dying to hear that story / oh god! general – _

A tin spoon clatters in a wooden bowl as Anna assaults us with noise in a revenge sulk. The Synth woman hasn't moved. Not even sure she's flinched. She just stares into that fire. Tom taps me again.

"Be back. New bandage," Tom gestures.

"No. You stay here and rest up. I'll take care of it," I tell him, wrestling a yawn.

Better to leave him here with Anna, rather than me and her alone right now. He has a way of tempering her moods. I stand and grab my satchel, rummaging through junk to find a roll of fresh bandages. Tom holds up two fingers to get my attention.

"Needs name too," he gestures.

"What," I ask, confused, dropping the bag on my chair

– ...l_come to the regiment, killkitty –_

"I don't get- what?"

He's not making sense. He has a name. Tom. We call him Tom. We know he's Jackie. Why is he-

"Woman. Needs name," he gestures again.

I groan.

"Now? We have to do this now? Can we- God! I can't deal right now. I ju- I just can't," I complain, and then suck in an angry straw of breath. "We need to get out of this first. I need a second to breathe. With you mothering this thi- person, and you pushing for cold-blooded murder, it's too much. I just want to go home. But they didn't have the key, and I can't go home, and now this insanity. It's too much. I'm not built for this. So, will you just get off my back a minute, Jackie? God, I need a drink."

– _i'll get you out of here / when's the last you ate – _

Tom and Anna stare at me like I've gone mad. Maybe I have. Static breathes through the radio.

"I...uh, might have a swaller o' moonshine in my pack," Anna offers. Tom nudges her.

"Just, stay here and get everything together. I'll get 'Lefty' fixed up," I reply, finding a clean bandage.

I wave a hand in front of the Synth's face. She blinks and seems to wake up – reactivate? – from wherever she went. I gently tug on her remaining elbow, leading her up out of her chair.

"Come on. We gotta go out back for a bit," I instruct her.

"Yes. This organic system must perform a purge of wastewater buildup," she responds.

"Of course you do," I mumble while leading the woman to a door at the back of the barn.

– _you gotta lead your target / keep cranking those muskets, jackie. more's coming –_

"Be quiet," I plead to the voices.

"OK. By what percentage should this system reduce audio output," the woman says.

"No, not you," I reply. "I was talking to… the dead."

"Okay. Would they require a massage," she asks as we step out the door.

_**Moments later...**_

I'm skipping ahead here because I'd rather not give a detailed account of helping a one-armed, brain-damaged Synth pee in the mud. The abridged version is: pull her pants down, maneuver her over a hole between the barn and the brahmin pen, help her squat to keep piss from running down her leg, lose a bandanna from one my pockets cleaning her up – I may kill Tom for that one – and then pull her pants back up. Getting enraged super mutants to mate without making a sound would have been less frustrating. That I'm assisting a helpless individual wearing the face of a fallen hero, my hero, twists another knife in my gut.

My dad gave me a doll to play with once when I was a child. We did everything together. Walked, talked, ate, played dress-up, all that. That doll…

– _moira where'd you go? __a__re you under the bed, moira? _–

…may have been made of cheap canvas with buttons for a face and rags for clothes, but to me she was real, my best friend. Taking this woman step-by-step through a simple piss cracks the dam I put around those memories long ago. They spill out, trickling at first across my strained mind's eye as I walk her woman to the dirt pit. By the time I'm cinching her rope belt back together, they flood into full-on mini-flashbacks.

– _look da-da! da-da look! moira'n me's gonna go hunt 'wudgees –_

A few tears pool at the corners of my eyes, and a couple etch lines through the grime on my cheeks. Synth woman stares at me as I finish dressing her, pupils tracking the tears like witnessing a shooting star for the first time.

With her pants up, I toss her jacket to fold over the fence. Her left arm hangs limp in the oversized dead Raider's shirt she wears, fingers barely protruding from the sleeve. The right sleeve is a nightmare. Fresh crimson blood from the wound seeps over crusted layers of drying blood, creating a blackened armband right above where her elbow should be. The rest of the sleeve sways empty in a cold breeze.

"We gotta get this off of you now; get you cleaned up," I tell her.

No response this time, other than a mildly interested blink.

I take a deep breath and start slowly lifting the hem of the shirt above her waist, gathering it in my hands as I go. Tenderly, I press the back of her shattered arm, urging her to turn it upward as I pull the sleeve hole off the shoulder and over her head. A quiet gasp sucks through her teeth.

Did I hurt her? I swear I feel her start to pull away against my other hand on her back.

"Sorry," I whisper automatically. "Sorry, sorry."

My attention slips, and in a blink I glance down. A perfect breast blooms, a majestic artistic flourish set amid a garden of flawless golden skin. I'm ashamed and self-conscious, wanting to recoil by wrapping my arms around my body. Honed in precise proportions, an organic symphony, no woman born in nature could ever hope to develop such breasts. These are the works of a craftsman, a poet. An image intrudes of Moira, clean and unblemished, when ma first gave her to me as a affection token one Christmas morning in the gathering qu room of our cabin.

Revulsion curdles in my gut. I involuntarily kick a step back away from her. She cocks her head while presumably assessing my behavior.

"H-Hang on," I stutter, trying to clear my head. "I need a second. Then we'll be all steak and eggs again."

I rub my eyes and slap myself. Focus.

The bandage over the woman's destroyed limb started out white. If the shirt sleeve looked bad, the bandage now looks like Hell's swimming pool. Blood saturates the cloth, painting it in varying states of red down to black. I almost fear what the wound looks like underneath.

– _aw, jackie, please don't be – _

I unravel what I can and pull the bandage off. Again, she only reacts with a couple sharp intakes of breath. The arm is a swollen, ragged lump of angry tissue where the woman's bicep essentially used to be. Tom packed cloth into the wound where he could to try and staunch the flow, but blood still drips from gaps. The new bandage loses its innocence the instant I start wrapping it around her stump. Working from the bottom up to close to her shoulder, red stains spread across the white cloth in several places. The woman patiently watches me work and lets out some more low gasps when I get clumsy with her arm.

The process emaciates my bandage roll. We could be in trouble if another of us gets wounded. We're no doctors – very few people are anymore – but we do our best with what we got. Hopefully, we can find one or the closest thing to it soon. Maybe we should cauterize the wound in the meantime. And find a new shirt. This filthy rag is likely swarming with disease left by its previous owner.

I help the woman back into the shirt anyway, considering naked is the only current alternative we have for her. I make superficial adjustments to the garment, an excuse to linger with her alone in the chilly, quiet air. Just the two of us, intimate as family like I used to dream about during those ambitious days in the regiment. My own pet hero now, if I wanted.

– _the hell 'killkitty' comes from_ –

She is virtually an exact replica of General Robinson, a breathing portrait. The same coffee brunette hair, though longer than I remember, frames the same wide and bottomless brown eyes, high cheekbones, sly lips, and a slender but stern jaw. She even has the same small mole near her chin. But in place of a once clever, vibrant woman – cynical with a wit as lethal as her aim, ruthless and driven, yet compassionate as a saint – now stands a vacant and maimed copy.

Through sheer grit and will, the original Nora Robinson rallied the Commonwealth to overthrow the Institute. She climbed out of one of those Vaults, the tales say, and sought revenge on the clandestine, underground enclave of scientists and engineers for kidnapping her son. At the same time, through a serendipitous rescue, Robinson helped resurrect and lead the Minutemen into a unified defense force. She also almost single-handedly grew a handful of small settlements into a confederated network that brought order to the wasteland beyond what Diamond City had ever achieved.

Word of her exploits hit the Commonwealth like a match in a drought-parched forest. Minutemen ranks grew with idealistic fighters dedicated to justice, like me. She challenged the Institute, which had terrorized the region for decades with kidnappings and murders, among other activities, for secret experiments. When push came to shove, we infiltrated the shadowy facility, overcame nigh impossible odds against their advanced technology, and destroyed them in nuclear fire beneath Cambridge.

We celebrated a new era of peace. But that, to our regret, was premature. An unknown number of humans and Synths evacuated before the blast and scattered on the surface, largely ignored. Some Synths regrouped into small bands for mutual protection against the hostile environment. One gang, the Destineers, emerged as dominant and swallowed the others under the banner of a rising warlord named Apostle Paul. This new army launched a religious-like crusade across the 'Wealth's northern lands, conquering settlement after settlement under imperialistic control. My home at Starlight was one of the first to fall. The Synths razed it after winning a decisive battle that routed Robinson's Minutemen. I take responsibility for her death there.

So here I stand, face-to-copied face with the woman who inspired me to join the Minutemen; with the hero who died because of me. Someone resurrected her as a Synth, and then because of me again, she might as well be dead again since she's reduced to a crippled shell in some default state I didn't even know could happen to Synths. Nausea, blended with a queer sludge cocktail of guilt, shame and embarrassment, surges within me followed by an adrenaline chaser.

"I didn't mean for any of this," I lament. "I wish it had been me instead. Every day I wish it."

The woman's eyes lock onto me with a focus she's yet to display since this insane trek began last night. A new tear protrudes onto my cheek. She reaches up and collects the droplet onto a finger. More threaten to follow. She softly wipes my face with her thumb like a mother would, like the mother I never had.

Her hand then slides to the back of my head, and she moves in closer. Before I can react, her lips are on mine, gliding into a smoldering, eager kiss. Blindsided, I forget how to breathe. I resist at first, but she's gentle rain on an early summer day. Each swish quenches my worries and anxieties, and cleanses away scabs of plaque from my poor, tarnished soul.

I acquiesce and return the kiss with a sob caught in my throat. I cling to her waist, drawing her body into mine, aware for the first time of a desperate thirst to connect with another person again. I'm afraid to let go for fear of returning to a spiritual void. Our auras glow hot into a nova. I never want to be cold again.

Her hand slides down my back. I feel the bun holding back my hair falter. I run a hand up her back, basking in her soft, twilight hair, before caressing the contours of her face. I start to know Nora Robinson, a version of her, in a way few people have in the past 200 years.

– _*glint of gold on blacktop* / ma'am dropped something_

The trance snaps. My eyes flash open. I push myself off the woman mid-kiss, a strand of spittle bridges our mouths before breaking. Another nauseating wave of guilt and shame bombards me.

"What the fuck did I just do," I pant.

"I hope this system was able to provide a measure of relief to your distress," the Nora Synth replies. "You can rate your satisfaction by-"

"Stop," I cut her off.

Breathe. That was just a function to her? Part of her programming? No way a kiss like that could be programmed, could it? That had to be real. She had to have felt something. Right?

I return to the woman, put my hands on her shoulders and look her in the eyes.

"Thank you," I say sincerely. "That helped more than I can express. But we can't ever do that again. Okay? I can't do that with you."

She stares at me, processing the words.

"Okay. Please feel free to instruct this system on how I can be of further assistance in the future," she states.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll get right on that. Let's back to the others first," I say, grabbing her jacket and helping her into it.

We walk back into the barn. Feels like eons since I've seen it, though we were outside only a few minutes. In that time, Colleen had finished her chores and dragged Callum inside to greet their guests. They, along with an awakened Unc'a Matt, evidently started chatting up Tom and Anna. The two left our table to join the Morrisseys at the bar.

But when the woman and I walk up, nobody's talking. They're concentrating on the radio, intent on news the announcer delivers through the static.

"Witnesses from as far south as Jamaica Plain reported seeing small mushroom clouds and plumes of black smoke rising into the sky. Again, if you're just tuning in to this breaking story, Bunker Hill has fallen to the Destineer army of Synths. They stormed the fortified settlement early this morning, bringing their leader, Apostle Paul, to the shores of the Charles River and a stone's throw from Boston."

"Jesus save us all," Colleen whispers.

Tom looks petrified. Anna rushes into my arms and hugs me. Her family used to trade through Bunker Hill. She used to tell us how she lost her virginity there.

"We haven't been able to get across the Charles yet to view the aftermath of the battle, but the site's famed historic obelisk is said to no longer be part of the skyline," the announcer continues. "This is as far south as Apostle Paul has come since his rampage across the Commonwealth began..."

"PRAISE PAUL!"

I'm deafened by the sudden shout in the small room. All of us jump and swivel to the source next to me. The woman, the copied Nora, the Synth, holds her hand up to the radio, fingers in a circle, with her legs in a wide stance.

"PRAISE PAUL," she bellows again.

Callum, Colleen and Matt snarl and pull guns on us lightning fast.

Oh, shit.


End file.
